On Saturday morning at 7AM, Chad and I drove down to Copenhagen for the weekend. We were told beforehand, that the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art north of Copenhagen was worth a visit. To get to the museum, we had to drive to Helsingborg and take a 30 minute ferry over to Denmark. I will just say, thank goodness for the GPS that was loaned to us by one of my co-workers. It took us straight there. It worked so well, that I think Chad might be buying one when we return to Greensboro.

The ferry ride took us from Helsingborg, Sweden to Helsingør, Denmark. Yes, two communities are named the same, but of course spelled slightly different in Danish. The distance between them is a only 4000 meters and is the shortest distance between the two countries. These 2 communities were built to control the shipping along the narrow strait. I think a long time ago, it was “one” city.

Everything is more expensive in Denmark than in Sweden except for alcohol. Most Suedes take the ferry just to buy cheap beer. Chad and I didn’t have that on our to-do list, so we forgot to take advantage of this. We only thought of it as we were driving off of the boat.

When we arrived at the Louisiana Museum, we found out that their spring exhibition was dedicated to Cézanne & Giacometti. To my surprise, Chad had studied Cézanne in school.  Here I was taking time to read the biographies of both amazing artists and Chad already knew them and started wandering off to view their work.  The exhibition consisted of 60 works by Cézanne and 110 works by Giacometti.   They were truly incredible and a great opportunity for us to experience.

After viewing the collections, we decided to have lunch. Lunch was so expensive, that I decided to just go for dessert and hot chocolate. We then walked the gardens surrounding the museum which were very nice. One thing that was quite funny was when we ran across a couple of sculptures that were labeled “Eyes”. They were definitely not eyes in my opinion; they should have been labeled “Big Boobies”.  They were so funny, I made Chad take a picture!

Once in Copenhagen, we used the indispensable GPS to locate our Hotel. It was quite confusing to maneuver around town, it seemed worse than Gothenburg. Our hotel was called “Phoenix Copenhagen”. It was a very nice hotel centrally located to virtually everything we wanted to see.

After checking in, we headed off to see some of the sites. We first saw Frederik’s Church, known as the Marble Church. The Church has the largest dome in Scandinavia with a span of 31 meters. They say the inspiration probably came from the Pantheon in Rome. The top of the dome contained pictures of all twelve disciples. It was beautiful.

The next stop was the Amalienborg Palace which is the winter home to the Danish royal family. It consists of 4 identical buildings originally built for 4 noble families. There were 3 royal guards constantly pacing the exterior guarding the place.

We then walked to the edge of the canal to view the new Opera house. The Opera house was built in 2005 and is among the most modern opera houses in the world.

Our walk continues down the edge of the water toward the Gefion fountain. The fountain is of a woman holding a whip over four bulls. A quote taken from Rough Guide to Scandinavia states: “The fountain’s sculpted figure is by Anders Bundgaard and shows the goddess Gefion with her four sons, whom she’s turned into oxen having been promised, in return, as much land as she can plough in a single night. The legend goes that she ploughed a chunk of Sweden, then picked up the piece of land (creating Lake Vanern) and tossed it into the sea – where it became Zealand.” Adjacent to the fountain stood the only Anglican Church in
Denmark built in 1895.

Our evening walking tour ended at the Little Mermaid. This famous statue was actually smaller than I expected. This small statue is one of Copenhagen icons and attracts many visitors.

For dinner, we had a craving for Italian food. Just by coincidence, there was a little Italian place 2 blocks from our hotel. It was called “Al Mercante”. The food and wine were excellent.

I was told by a co-worker that we absolutely must have a beer in Nyhavn during our visit to Copenhagen. Nyhavn is part of the original harbor dating all the way back to when Copenhagen was founded in the 12th century. Today, it is the Dane’s recreational center of town with lots of restaurants and bars. Also, old sailing boats and the harbor canal tour boats can be seen there. So, after dinner, we had to go buy a beer in Nyhavn!

Sunday morning after a big breakfast at our hotel, we went to see the Citadel of Copenhagen which is one of the best preserved fortresses in Europe from the 17th century. It was built to secure the northern entrance of the harbor. Today it is still used as military location. On site was a nineteenth century Dutch style windmill, which still works today. They run it once per year. Check out Chad’s great picture of the windmill below.

For lunch,we went back to Nyhavn to have lunch next to the canal. We found a place that servedhamburgers, so that sounded good to us. While there, we noticed a commotion right next to us. There was a drunken guy only wearing his underwear sitting on the edge of the water! People started gathering around him. We could just sit there and watch the whole thing. All of a sudden, the guy jumped into the freezing cold water!! We could not believe it. I saw someone use their cell phone, so I assumed they were calling the police! There were several people trying to help him. He was able to swim to a ladder near by and climbed back up to put his cloths on. It turns out that there was a bar next door that is open 24 hours every day, and some people like him were there all night. Our waitress told us that there were people trying to talk him into jumping and some trying to talk him out of it!!

Following that little excitement, we made our way to our last place to visit which was the Rosenborg Castle. The castle was quite a place. It was built to be used as a summer home in 1606 for King Christian IV. The King designed the castle himself and it took more than 20 years to build. Today, the castle is a museum and also contains Denmark’s crown jewels.

It was a great trip!

Rhonda

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